Why is the chicken curry not tender?

Annoyed?
Even after having cooked according to the recipe book or television show or the internet you get a hard chicken?In fact,  I have had this particular question asked to me quite a few times. Truth be told, when I started venturing out in the kitchen in the initial days I too was at the receiving end of hard chicken/mutton pieces in the curries that I used to cook.

Chicken Masala

For a beginner who loves to cook after being inspired by the TV - Blame it on the TV show/Recipe on the Internet/Magazines/Newspaper supplements where they depict a Chicken curry being made in 30 mins and a mutton curry not requiring anything more than an hour. Just a few days back, while watching one of the several television serials I have seen a mutton curry being made within 40 mins!Another interesting one - which shows the anchor to have gone to Rajasthan and the person gets awe inspired and tries to make the classic dish - Rajasthani Laal Maas.The mutton was stirred with spices and oil and then left to cook for an hour in the oil, where it was being roasted.No prizes for guessing the end result - the mutton had gone black due to the lack of water; and we had the host enjoying the mutton saying "yeah, thats about it!tastes great".

The difference between showing a recipe in the television and cooking in your home cannot be stressed more. At home, you need to EAT the food therefore it needs to be made edible. But on a tele, you need to show it. Great "looking" food can be equally distasteful at the same time!

Lets come back to where we had started.The key to make the mutton or chicken piece soft and tender and tasty at the same time is to give it the time it requires to be soft. Indian cooking broadly involves the following steps(incase you need more details, please feel free to drop me an email/suggest you to put in your question through comments):
-   Marinade the chicken with ingredients as mentioned in the recipe.
-   Let the spices crackle and then usually the onion,garlic et al are added
-   Once the onion slices turn brown add the meat
-   Roast the meat with all spices till oil starts separating from the mixture on high heat
-   After the roasting part is done, let the meat simmer on low heat until it becomes soft.
-   Once soft, reduce the water and leave as much of gravy as you want to.If yoghurt/garam masala/aroma etc needs to be added, it beeds to be at the end.

Here are some suggested cooking times:
For chicken:
Tip#1:
I especially love my chicken to be soft. Roast the chicken with the spices for a minimum of 20 mins.Turn the heat to low.
Then add warm water to the level of the chicken.Put a lid on it, and wait until the water level has gone down. Add some more warm water and repeat the process for 40-50 mins. This will gurantee  your chicken super soft and tender. But after the same time, donot stir the chicken much in between adding water because that might cause the meat to get separated from the bone.

Tip#2:Using a Pressure Cooker
Roast the chicken with the spices for a minimum of 20 mins. Put the chicken in a pressure cooker fr 15-20 mins. Once the pressure cooker is opened it will gurantee a soft chicken but the con here is:it wont be as tasty as mentioned above.
Slow cooking always gurantees a better taste.

Tip#3:For mutton:
Suggested:  Roast the mutton with the spices for a minimum of 30-40 mins. Then repeat the simmering part as mentioned above. However not that mutton can be really hard at times and requires much more time than chicken.For a soft and tender mutton, repeat the simmering process for ATLEAST a good couple of hours.Incase it is still not tender, then put the mutton in the pressure cooker.

Tip#4: Use your intuition. As you gradually start gaining experience, you will gain idea regarding the amount of time required, the amount of spices required, the ingredients required etc. Remember - Rome was not built in a day!